


night invasions

by zukoscomet



Series: roots and wings [7]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Post-Canon, Steambabies - Freeform, bc of course it's family fluff this is me writing after all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27669446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zukoscomet/pseuds/zukoscomet
Summary: “I get that you’re royalty and stuff but why in the spirits’ names do you need a bed this big when you sleep alone?”Or: Katara has always thought the Fire Lord's bed is ridiculously too big, but in the end she might just be wrong about that.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: roots and wings [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1934692
Comments: 7
Kudos: 184





	night invasions

**Author's Note:**

> I hate myself for having thought this up and written it in about an hour flat when I've been working on the same chapter of 'the longest shortest year' for literally weeks, aha. Alas, I thought it was a cute picture in my head and I'm happy enough with the way it turned out so, voila! (Also, for anyone reads this who reads 'the longest shortest year', next update is almost finished, I swear!)
> 
> I've also realised that I've never collated all of my HCs for Katara and Zuko's family in one place, I'll have to get on that, but in the meantime, at this point in their world in 121 AG, they have: Kaito "Kai" (born 109 AG), Izumi (born 110 AG), Bashira "Shira" (born 114 AG), Lili (born 117 AG) and little Kallik (born 118 AG).
> 
> Enjoy :)
> 
> EDIT: I've had a little re-jig in my vision for the Zutara family so previously, the current youngest in this fic was a boy named Iroh II. Now his name is Kallik, just in case anyone re-reads and is confused.

Katara has always hated their bed.

When his wife had moved to the Fire Nation as ambassador for her tribe nearly two decades ago - a length of time that seems simultaneously too long and too short for how it feels - she’d been completely baffled at the size of the mattress in her quarters, used to sleeping only within the strict confines of a thickly-lined sleeping bag. Needless to say, her bewilderment had turned to near outrage when she’d crashed into his bedroom for the first time, in a fervour over a particular social report and ready to work through it with him. The topic of the research paper he couldn’t quite recall but their exchange, however, he recalls in perfect clarity.

_“I get that you’re royalty and stuff but why in the spirits’ names do you need a bed this big when you sleep_ alone _?”_ He remembers how her eyes had widened at the implied slight. _“I-, I mean even when you don’t, when you do_ _have company over, that’s still way too much room for just two people.”_

_He’d shrugged nonchalantly. “Who says there’s only two of us?”  
_

Zuko still laughs about the resulting look on her face even now.

Katara’s complaints about his mattress hadn’t really eased much in the years following, not even after they'd married and she herself had been the one sharing it with him - except perhaps for the very specific time-frames that had cropped up in all of her pregnancies where she’d force him to sleep at the edge because his _breathing_ was bothering her. Zuko didn’t question it. After having been through a collective forty-five months with a pregnant Katara, Zuko didn’t question anything when his wife was carrying another person inside her. In her not-pregnant times, he’d regularly have to hear about how there was no need at all for their bed to be this big and how they should have it replaced it with something more modest. Unsurprisingly, though, the issue of changing their sleeping facilities always came up a little too short on the Fire Lord and Lady’s to-do list for anything to actually be done about it.

For the most part, even though he couldn’t deny that collapsing face-first into an abundance of softness after a rough day was deeply healing for the soul, he agreed with Katara - the bed _was_ too large for just two people, especially when those two people always slept so close to one another.

When it was occupied by two adults and five children with very little concept of personal space, however, that was a different matter.

Now that their babies were technically not babies anymore and all slept in their own rooms, Zuko likened the new and updated co-sleeping arrangement to be like dominoes falling - if one came in, then by some unspoken pact, they all had to, and it seemed to unfold in the approximate order of age. 

It would always start with Kallik. Kallik had been a mercifully good sleeper right from birth - a trait they were especially grateful for after having had Izumi who as an infant would sleep in her crib for no man or beast - but he was a clingy little thing, a devoted mama’s boy just like his elder brother. Only recently had he been transferred into the conjoining ‘big kids’ room with his nearest-aged sister, so still it wasn’t unusual for Zuko to wake to their son wriggling his way in between he and Katara, his beloved stuffed badger mole from Auntie Toph in hand. Kallik, a child not at all gifted with quiet steps, would invariably rouse his sister on the way out so then Lili, too, would come crawling in with them. Though their two older girls resided further down the hall, the movement of the youngest siblings would catch the ears of their thirdborn, Shira, who had inherited Zuko’s combat-tuned hearing along with the promising blade skills. Shira would then purposefully wake Izumi and the pair would come scampering in beneath the covers. Even Kai, finally moved into the Crown Prince’s wing and teetering on the cusp of his teenage years, couldn’t quite resist the sound of his sisters’ bedroom door opening and closing and found himself creeping into his parents’ bed. 

That routine had played out in perfect coordination tonight.

Zuko awakes at dawn encased between his elder daughters. On his right, he has Bashira. She seems to be compensating for being at the edge of the mattress by curling her body as tight to him as physically possible, with legs wrapped around his arm and head nestled in the crook of his neck. On his left, Izumi has opted to bury herself into him, her arms encircling his torso with a vice-like grip as she presses her cheek to his lower ribcage. Kai has found himself in the typically most undesirable position - sandwiched in the middle of the family - but is probably the most comfortable of them all, lying flat on his back with an arm wrapped around Lili snuggling into his side. Then, of course, there’s Katara.

Sometimes, the accumulation of kids in their bed would not disturb Katara at all. However, not even the heaviest of sleepers couldn’t be oblivious to a three-year old unceremoniously heaping himself atop them, which was exactly what Kallik had done to his mother overnight and was exactly how he remained. Their youngest child was clutched onto her like a spider monkey, head resting against at the top of her sternum, his tightly coiled curls tickling her chin in the rhythm of his breaths in and out.

It was unusual to see both the orange glow of the sun breaking over the horizon and her bright blue eyes blinking across from him - ordinarily, if he weren't trapped for the foreseeable future by his girls, Zuko would be long gone and into his morning meditation by the time she even stirred - but it was a far from unwelcome experience.

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this,” Katara says to him, as loudly as she could allow without disturbing their visitors. “-but I think we might need a bigger bed.”

Zuko just chuckles.


End file.
